Revolution in Prague

I have long had friends in Czechoslovakia, some 100 km (60 mls) east of
where I was born. In 1968 a massive invasion of Soviet, East German and
other Warszaw pact armies ended "socialism with a human face", a daring
but short-lived experiment by liberal communist prime minister Alexander
Dubcec. My friend later showed me underground leaflets distributed then,
that he had secretly stashed away. I was only seven years old when that
happened, but I still remember being frightened after hearing my father
and uncles talking about whether the invasion could mean WW3.

Nine years later, a group of intellectuals formed a human rights
organization called "Charta 77". Its leaders were playwright Vaclav Havel
and Jiri Dienstbier. Another prominent member was Petr Uhl. The opposition
group was persecuted and its members spent many years in Czech prisons.

Following "perestroika" in Russia under Mikhail Gorbachev, political change
built up momentum across Eastern Europe. Poland voted for a non-communist
government. Hungary took down the barbed wire along its border to Austria,
triggering a mass exodus of East Germans to the west. Mass demonstrations
in Leipzig, Dresden and other east German cities followed. Then thousands
of East Germans invaded the West German embassy in Prague, forcing the
East German government to let them emigrate. Soon after, the Berlin wall
and border checkpoints to West Germany were opened and millions of East
Germans could travel west for the first time in four decades.

Infected by the bold spirit of their neighbours, Czech students publicly
demonstrated near Vaclav square in the center of Prague, commemorating
Czech students who had dared to demonstrate against Nazi occupation
50 years earlier.
Despite the non-confrontational theme, police violently broke up the
demonstration, brutally beating the students. Fotos of the events emerged
and public outrage followed. The national television eventually had to show
pictures of the clubbing. This triggered growing mass demonstrations on
Vaclav Square in central Prague, which got so big that they had to be moved
to Letna Square, the usual site of the annual Mayday parade of the Communist
Party (KSC). Two big rallies were to be held on Letna Square over the weekend,
to spread the call for a general strike, to demonstrate to the Communist
Party that it was isolated and that the people wanted it to resign.

When I saw the reports on the TV news, I decided to leave for the Czech
border the very next morning. East of the Bohemian Forest the snow was
about 30 cm (1 ft) deep. Bohemia was covered in white and the infamous
"Bohemian Wind" was blowing. I experienced no particular problems at the
border and found relatively little traffic on the wintery roads. My 4wd
Audi took me to Teplice, in northern Bohemia, some 60 km (40 mls) south
of Dresden, without any problems due to ice or snowdrifts.

My friends were surprized to see me, of course. Throughout the afternoon we
watched television. All regular programming had been cancelled and there were
only interviews, live reports and speeches. All censorship had been dropped.
Journalists reported about anything, said anything, gave a forum to anybody.
I was probably watching the most free television in all of Europa at that
moment. Finally it was announced that Vaclav Havel would speak. I was
utterly amazed. The man who had all his plays banned, had been jailed, made
to earn his living shovelling coal, probably the most stubborn oppositional
in this country could speak freely to his compatriots. And speak he did, I
don't remember if it was for 30 minutes or an hour. The camera was his, and the
audience too. That same afternoon there were a million people on Letna square,
at a demonstration of the Obcanske Forum (civic forum, the largest organization
within which was Charta 77).

I talked to my friend about going to Prague on Sunday together.
His wife was worried what might happen. What if they had their pictures taken,
got arrested and lost their jobs? But a million people had demonstrated already
and Havel had been on TV. The Berlin Wall had been broken too. This was not
Prague 1968 any more. This time it would work. Well, if he was going then so was
she.

The roads were icy as we headed down to Prague the next day, but it was a
pleasure to drive in the Audi. Letna Square is on one of the hills high above
the centre of Prague, which makes it cold and windswept in the winter. We parked
in the suburbs within walking distance and followed the crowds.

The first thing that surprised us was that there was no police. Usually, they were
all over the place. Now, not one. I was going to witness an event with anywhere
upwards of 500,000 people and would not see a single policeman all afternoon, in
what until days ago could only have been described as a police state.
Instead we saw students with white armbands, or civic forum badges, who took care
of everything. The government must have decided that violence was too risky.

This ice-hockey stadium at the edge of the square was used by the speakers, amongst
them Havel, Dienstbier and Petr Uhl, who had just been released from jail were he
had been taken for spreading the (luckily mistaken) rumour that a student had been
killed during the demonstration the previous weekend.

The crowd was so huge, it was difficult to see how big its was from anywhere in the
middle. So I passed up my camera to one of these guys and they were kind enough to
take some pictures in various directions. No one was paranoid about having their
pictures taken any more. People had shaken off fear.

This is the view towards the stage. Many people were wearing ski hats or jackets in
the colours of the Czechoslovakian flag. This was not just an anti-communist or
anti-stalinist event, since it had been a foreign invasion that suppressed
freedom 21 years earlier. This was very much a nationalist event too. The revolution
of 1989 was as much about reclaiming national sovereignity lost in 1968 as it was
about restoring democracy lost in 1948.

That's the view towards the right hand side of the square. I was told Letna Square
can hold one million people. It had been full on Saturday. Looks pretty full to me
on that Sunday too!

The slogans on three of the banners read: "Step down!", "Civic Forum" and
"Free Elections!"

The Victory sign became popular over night, as a sign of confidence in
the effectiveness of the general strike the following Monday.

"Free newspapers, radio and television" (my Czech is pretty rudimentary...) --
a message against censorship

On the left (in red): "End one party elections!" Below: Valtr Komarek was a
renowned economist who came out against the government.

Two of the young people who organized security, directing traffic and handing out
information. Yes, it was cold and windy too.

A revolutionary family effort. The child in the middle holds a banner with "Svoboda"
(Freedom) written on it

Stalinism hit its dead end. All shop windows were plastered with
political messages, as were the underground (subway) stations
that are the arteries of public transport in Prague.

Fotographs of the violently crushed students demonstration that caused the
outrage triggering the mass demonstrations.

Pictures of Alexander Dubcec, father of the "Prague Spring" of 1968 and of
Mikhail Gorbachov whose hands-off policy discouraged the Czech communists
from resorting to violence in the way the Chinese leadership had done
at Tien-An-Men square earlier that year.

View towards the top end of Vaclav Square, with the National Army Museum
in the back. In front of the museum is the Vaclav Monument, which most of
us remember from pictures showing it surrounded by Russian tanks in
August 1968.

A field of candles lit for the victims of the government.

Cheerful pedestrians were waving the V-sign at passing motorists who
honked their horns in solidarity.

V-signs and flags every where -- as along the street between Vaclav
Monument and the museum.

People had been waiting for this day for at least 21 years. Until a
few years aerlier the National Army Museum in the background still
bore the bullet holes were it had been hit by Soviet tank artillery.

Ladas, Skodas, Trabants and Wartburgs in a freedom parade.

The following day was scheduled to be a general strike. The opposition
groups were headed by well known intelectuals. The big demonstrations
had all been in Prague. People still were not sure what the outcome would
be in the smaller towns, away from the capital and how effective the
strike call would be amongst industrial workers, such as the Skoda
factories.

But Czechs have long held intellectuals in high respect, like to read
and to watch plays. Famous actors, whole theaters and even national
football (soccer) players publicly came out in support of the strike call.
By Monday afternoon, when I was back in Germany, the figures were in:
The strike was a great success, the government had lost every pretense of
being in control and there was nothing else left but to withdraw in an
as orderly way as possible. Within days, a transitional cabinet was
established and former oppositionals took control of public institutions.
An election later confirmed that communist majority had always been a
carefully constructed fiction.

Vaclav Havel (president of the Czech Republic until February 2003) is one
of the politicians who I respect most, for his courage, his non-violent
struggle, his sense of humour and his humane values.